Amid Economic Turbulence, Don't Bet on Artificial Intelligence to Save Us

Technology and artificial intelligence, we're told, are creating a New Economy, where algorithms and robots do all our work for us, increasing productivity like never before. Go by the evidence, though, and the reality looks far different. For decades, U.S. productivity grew by about 3 percent a year. After 1970, it slowed to 1.5 percent a year, then 1 percent. Today, that figure stands at 0.5 percent, and is likely to slump further from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic and mass lockdowns.